The next day, we have off for a teachers’ conference, which is a gift. I don’t want to have to face Mason at school. I don’t know why he’s angry at me, but I’m sure it has something to do with Hank Hobbs.
I’m still spooked to be in the house, but I decide to be brave and hit Diego’s computer after he leaves for work.
I plug Hank Hobbs into a search engine. Even Joe couldn’t be angry with me about that. I can’t believe the flood of information that comes up. He had some career going, and he was on the boards of a bunch of companies. It makes for rough going. I can’t get through the information overload, and after spending over an hour scrolling through corporate newsletters and articles about “synergistic strategies,” I feel like my brain cells are going to fuse.
Time for my own personal computer geek.
I met Ryan last summer, when I was nosing around trying to find out what had happened to Emily. He had a bit of a crush on her, and a bit of a crush on me, but now he has a girlfriend, Tobie, so we’re able to be friends. Whenever I have a glitch I can’t solve, I call Ryan, and he leads me through a fix-it strategy while blasting my ear with his newest obsessions—last time it was polka-rock (yes, really), the mating habits of polar bears, and Turkish food.
“Gracie! Awesome!” Ryan also has a tendency to speak in exclamation points. “What brings you to call me on my landline?”
“I’ve got a sleuthing problem.”
“Talk on, Nancy Drew.”
I explain my information deluge, and what I’m looking for.
“No worries!” Ryan says. “I can devise the right string to find the info. Can you hang on for a few?”
I hang on. I hear the clackety-clack of computer keys.
“Got something!” Ryan says. “Hang on… Yeah, the newspaper on Beewick back there in the ice age was called the Beacon, not the Star. And they totally rock, because their archives are all online. Some sort of historical record project. I’m going to e-mail this to you.”
A moment later, Ryan’s e-mail pops up. I click on the URL.
“ACCUSATIONS LEVELED AT MONVOR FOLLOWING DISAPPEARANCE”
I read the article quickly. Shay is quoted saying that Billy Applegate went off to see Hank Hobbs. She makes it clear that she suspects him of hiding something and challenges him in print to “tell the truth about what happened that night.”
No wonder Hank Hobbs tried to get her fired.
At the end of the article, it notes, “Ms. Kenzie has also been questioned regarding Mr. Applegate’s disappearance.”
So Nate was right.
“Here’s something interesting,” Ryan says, breaking into my thoughts.
My little flag pops up, and I click on Ryan’s e-mail. He’s included a paragraph from another article that mentions that Hank Hobbs’s house was broken into twenty years ago. The police investigated and “concluded that it has no connection to the Applegate disappearance.” A few things were stolen, including a briefcase. “I was certain I’d set the alarm, but I guess I didn’t,” Hobbs said.
A briefcase was stolen. Could it have contained the documents that Billy Applegate had claimed to have, the ones that proved that Monvor had falsified data? The break-in had happened just a few days before he disappeared. Just around the time he told the group that he had the goods on Monvor.
“It’s got to be it,” I whisper.
“Hey, this is weird,” Ryan says. “This guy Hobbs was married to a woman named Pam. But back then, he got engaged to someone else.”
“Who?”
“An Elizabeth Anne Dunwoody. I love these announcements, they are so incredibly cornball. Elizabeth, known as Betsy, has attended the Heath School in Seattle and is currently—”
“Known as Betsy!” Jeff Ferris had heard Hank talking to a Betsy on the phone.
“Is that something? Did I find something?”
“You are an incredible genius.”
“I have to inform you, Gracie, that I am taken. Tobie is the axis around which I revolve. So even though I worship your completely awesome personhood, we must remain attached on only a spiritual plane—”
“Can you find out if Betsy Dunwoody is still living around here?”
“Does a chicken have lips?” I hear keys clacking again. “Betsy Dunwoody married someone else. She is now Mrs. Elizabeth Dunwoody Wheeler, and she lives in Bellevue, Washington. Let me see…museum trustee, country club, chair of Save the Parklands committee…yeah, we’re talking major Betsy bucks.”
Bellevue is a swanky suburb of Seattle. It’s only an hour south of here. And Diego has a car.